I’ve enjoyed the year-end retrospectives several of my favorite blogs have posted over the last week. Here’s one version of what the year looked like around these parts.

January was about endings and beginnings: Amato Opera announced it was closing (very, very sad); William Zantzinger bit the dust (not so sad); we reflected on historic inaugurations.

February saw death spreading: Holiday Cocktail Lounge’s Stafan Lutak; Joe Ades, the Peeler Man. The Bowery hit hard times, but not in the traditional sense. I couldn’t stop thinking about Sing Sing marble and prison labor, while Cyrus couldn’t stop thinking about the creation of the world.

In March I inadvertently followed John Lennon to Bermuda; I also, somehow, watched Watchmen twice. Meanwhile, Cyrus had a welcome excuse to write about baseball;